


blossom in ribcage until their backs break

by brampersandon



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Italy nt, Juventus Turin, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 11:19:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10489734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brampersandon/pseuds/brampersandon
Summary: A thousand times, and it never loses its magic.





	

**Author's Note:**

> written for [this prompt](https://footballprompts.tumblr.com/post/158326892520/):
> 
> "Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.  
> These, our bodies, possessed by light.  
> Tell me we’ll never get used to it."  
> (Richard Siken, _Scheherazade_ )
> 
> title comes from _avocado, baby_ by los campesinos!

It isn't the first time they've met. It isn't even the first time they've talked. But it is the first time Leo feels like they see one another plainly.

He beats out Canna and Pirlo to sit next to Gigi on their flight to Johannesburg, makes a throwaway comment — he's a little grateful he can't remember the exact words anymore but it was probably something as cheesy as _I'll have your back out there_ — and finds himself embroiled in hours of quiet conversation beneath the hum of the plane. Gigi has a lot to say. Gigi likes to hear himself talk. That's fine, Leo does too.

"I don't feel quite right," he admits. "I was holding back against Mexico. Now, I'm not saying that's why we lost, but…"

"Hey, I did my best," Leo grins. It's half a joke. Yes, it was only a friendly. Yes, they still lost. But something lit up when he scored that first goal for the Azzurri, something he wasn't aware he had inside him, and it hasn't gone out yet. 

"You did," Gigi agrees, "But we can't afford to be cautious now." It sounds like a reminder for himself as much as it is for Leo. Maybe more.

Leo blinks. Glances past Gigi, out the window at the infinite inky sky. Thinks of Ferrarini. Thinks of the last time he felt anything close to scared. "I don't know how to be cautious," he admits, and it sounds so young and arrogant even to his own ears. He doesn't even consider taking it back.

When he meets Gigi's eyes again, they're exceptionally clear, all brightness and warmth despite the dim light of the cabin. "I can tell," he says. It isn't judgmental or patronizing. It's— honest. Like Gigi reads him as easily as he does the game. Like he knows.

 

 

 

 

Of course, they lose him during the first half of the first match. 

Leo slips out of the locker room before Lippi can read them the riot act, finds Gigi in the physio's laying face down on a table, forehead resting on forearms. They don't know what's wrong yet. Hamstring, they thought at first. Turns out it might be his back. Might not even be that serious. Might be nothing to worry about.

Still.

Leo doesn't hesitate, doesn't say anything, just cards a hand through Gigi's hair and scratches at his nape. It draws a contented noise out of Gigi, and that's all the encouragement he needs. He stays there until he hears Lippi yelling down the hall.

 

 

 

 

It sets a precedent.

Leo isn't stupid. Impulsive and prideful, sure, he'll admit to those any day — but he can see the reality of a situation when it's in his face. He's not anywhere close to being a starting option for the Azzurri. He's on his way to a new team, he'll have to start from scratch there as well. Nothing is guaranteed for him.

But— _but_.

Ferrarini tells him to visualize his success, to grab it by the throat and drag it toward him. 

So Leo does. Whether he's in blue or black and white, he turns his gaze toward the future and knows he'll be the last line of defense before Gigi every time.

 

 

 

 

(Secretly he thinks Conte must have the same vision he does, because he sets his half-mad gaze over Leo early on. There's nothing comforting about the way he appraises them, more a lion watching chital at the waterhole than a benevolent schoolteacher, but Leo likes that.

"You three," he says, snapping his fingers at Leo before gesturing to Giorgio and Andrea. "I want to try something."

They need to make some serious changes, and Leo doesn't know anyone who says no to Conte, so.)

 

 

 

 

He finds himself spending more and more time with Andrea and Giorgio off the pitch. Claudio joins them when he can, and it's— different. Not the crowd Leo usually hangs around. But he loves to listen to them, the way they see their thoughts through. Andrea's still waters run deep, he chooses his words carefully and it's what's left unsaid that Leo's fascinated by. Giorgio is _insanely_ intelligent, far smarter than anyone would assume just by watching his football. Claudio knows more about art, fashion, food and music than anyone he's known, constantly pulling from a mental bank to draw connections between people and places and things that Leo would never dream of.

Next to them he feels too loud and direct— but it isn't a bad feeling, exactly. He cuts to the quick in a way none of them do. Not everything has be a complex moral quandary, a teaching opportunity, an allegory for something else. 

It's one of infinite reasons why he loves football. At the heart of it, there is a pitch, there is a ball, there is his body, and there are ten others. There's poetry to it, there's an overarching narrative, there are emotions — but those exist before and after the game. Right there, with his feet on the ground, there's only what he can see right in front of him. 

The beauty is in the simplicity. 

 

 

 

 

Gigi is more complicated than the lot of them put together.

This isn't news to Leo. It doesn't take long for him to learn that despite his gregariousness and the ease with which he connects all of them into a cohesive group for him to lead, Gigi prefers to keep to himself outside of Vinovo. He isn't reclusive, he _does_ occasionally accept an invitation for a night out, but he knows what he likes, and he likes the world he's built for himself.

Leo never meant to force his way into it, but it happens slowly and then all at once. He starts dropping by while Gigi recovers from his back surgery, spends a fair few afternoons sitting on the other side of his bed and watching the weekend's matches. He brings food neither of them should be eating, he picks up a few things around the house until Gigi gripes at him to stop because he doesn't like it too tidy, he reaches across during quiet moments and winds Gigi's hair around his fingers.

And then Gigi's on his feet, and it's a new season, and things are normal again for all intents and purposes, but Leo is still there.

 

 

 

 

"I know Gigi, and he doesn't just let anyone come over," Claudio says in his infinite wisdom, but his tone is clearly angling for an answer that's more gossip than anything else. 

And he's not going to get it. Leo beams at him, eyes squinting shut and nose scrunching up. "I'm fucking charming, Marchisio."

Claudio makes a move to smack the side of his head but pulls back when he sees their espressinos coming, all placid and poised _principino_ in the public eye. "You're the worst," he says so genially before saluting Leo with his tiny cup.

 

 

 

 

He doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut, and he doesn't know how to keep anything from Gigi, so—

"That's funny," Gigi rumbles, his laughter disturbing the steam rising from the pot he's been attending to. "Assume he's right — what do you think it is that makes you different?"

The obvious answer stares at him from every angle. His mug hanging over the coffee maker, next to Gigi's. His straight razor by the sink and how Gigi mocks him for it nine mornings out of ten. His clothes strewn around the bedroom because in truth, he doesn't like things too tidy either. His side of the bed, the same side he claimed when he first started coming over just to sit and chat with no ulterior motive in mind. 

But that can't be all there is to it. Leo knows Gigi better than that. Affection doesn't necessarily equate to proximity.

He could be coy — _you're the one who gave me a key, Buffon, you tell me_. He could be cocky — _nobody else measured up before me, what else is new_? He could be a lot of things, but in the end, he only knows how to be honest.

"I see you," Leo says, shrugging a mercurial shoulder. "I'm not intimidated. Never was."

Gigi would never admit that his reputation precedes him. He's carved his image out by owning it, striking that precise balance between self-assurance and ego. He does his best to put everyone around him at ease — still, it doesn't always work. 

"Leave the soup be," he tacks on. Gigi does, wipes his hands on his jeans, turns away from the stove and kisses him. There's less bite to it than usual.

He doesn't need to say Leo's right. 

 

 

 

 

Ferrarini berates him endlessly when he returns from Kiev, and it's _good_ , it's exactly what Leo needs. Every word spit in his face wipes another smudge of self-pity off him. 

He never makes excuses, not outside of this room and _definitely_ not in it, but when Ferrarini tells him he's unfocused he has to butt in. "I'm trying to learn how to fight for someone else," he says through gritted teeth. "Not just myself."

Ferrarini _laughs_ , which is worse than a punch to the gut. "A warrior protects others by first protecting himself." As soon as Leo thinks _yeah, but_ , he rallies on. "Worry about yourself. You lose sight of what's in front of you when you keep looking back. That's how you get blindsided."

Which— _no shit_ , of course you can't look in both directions at once, but. It could be just another of his thousand and one sayings, sure, except Ferrarini knows him nearly better than he knows himself. Could be literal, too. 

He knows Gigi is behind him. He shouldn't have to keep checking.

 

 

 

 

Gigi lifts trophy after trophy for Juventus, and every time Leo feels ready to burst out of his own skin.

Every time he sprays all of them with champagne, every time he follows Gigi home afterward and licks the leftover sticky-sweet taste of it off his chest, every time he sinks to his knees and lets Gigi babble effusive, grandiose praise. 

It's consistent, but it's never predictable. Every time feels like the first (in Leo's hotel room in Cagliari, the rest of the team still downstairs celebrating, Gigi laughing at him because he wanted to keep his medal on). The whole experience makes Leo punch drunk and stupid, implausibly happy for weeks after, so enamored with him, with the crest, with all of it.

 

 

 

 

Paulo's at the age where he still cares about what the press writes about him. He reads, he reads _voraciously_ , and he loves to parrot their own quotes back at them in the locker room. It's obnoxious. They all adore the kid, but—

" _I am fortunate enough to breathe him in_ ," he recites and looks up from his phone. "Okay, is that weird or hot?"

"Weird," Claudio decides immediately. "Is the next line about how a man with that much money shouldn't smell like Drakkar Noir?"

"Nah." Paulo snaps his gum, passes his phone to Patrice and Pogba when they start squawking about how he's making shit up. "I only report the facts! It's about watching him in the locker room and stuff— we all do that though, dunno why Bonny thinks he's special."

Gigi, for his part, only towels off his wet hair and deadpans, "Stop, this is all very embarrassing for me." He catches Leo's eye across the room and raises his eyebrows as if to say _it's your own fault you can't keep your mouth shut to the press_. The fucker is impossible to ruffle. 

Leo, on the other hand—

"He's blushing," Steph points out, because he's a goddamn traitor and Leo always knew it. He flips them all off before hitting the showers, and still, _still_ , even with all of them laughing and crowing at him as he goes, even with every persistent rumor that's dogged him ever since Conte left, there's nowhere he'd rather be.

 

 

 

 

Bordeaux goes white behind his eyes. Leo thinks of going home, of going on a deserved holiday, of making a stop in between at Ferrarini's basement. He's nearly thirty years old; maybe by now he should stop defaulting to having the negativity teeming in his mind shouted or punched out of him.

Maybe. He can't think of an alternate right now.

Gigi grips the back of his neck and everything slams back into sharp clarity — the crowd, the mass of Germans celebrating, his teammates, _Gigi_.

He inhales sharply as Gigi turns him around, pulls him against his chest. It isn't for comfort. Not yet. "Go to Andrea," he murmurs.

"Okay." He should've already. Immediately. He was too in his own head. "Are you—"

"Later," Gigi says, and he sounds more exhausted than Leo's ever heard. Worse than Berlin, worse than Kiev. 

This is what they do. Gigi carries his captain's duties well, but he can't be everywhere for everyone at once — so Leo goes where he's told, helps who he can. He finds Andrea crouched on the ground near the center circle, like he could still be looking for ladybugs if he didn't have one hand pinching the bridge of his nose. Giorgio isn't far behind, and together they help him to his feet. Leo lets him hide his face between them for a moment, and bitterness threatens to choke him entirely. He's so tired of seeing them like this. 

 

 

 

 

He's won and lost enough in his career already, scaled impossible heights with club and felt indescribable devastation with country, he really should be used to it by now.

(Or not. Ferrarini tells him the moment something becomes commonplace, then it's beneath him. He can never let a win or a loss feel like something he deserved to have handed to him. Everything must be a fight. Every feeling must rush him anew. It's an exhausting way to live, but it's the only way he knows.)

Gigi bites the soft skin between his shoulder blades, grips his hips hard enough to bruise, wraps a hand around his throat and squeezes just until Leo starts to go light headed. He bears loss far more gracefully than most, but in private he's every bit as disappointed and enraged and desperate as Leo. It's good for both of them. It's nice to get it all out, to not have to think.

"Come on holiday with me," Leo says after the fact, still breathing ragged, chin against Gigi's chest. "Forget this bullshit."

"Maybe," Gigi mutters. His eyes stay shut. He'll probably need time alone — he usually does — but Leo doesn't want that. Not this time. He knows how Gigi dwells on losses. He's gotten harder on himself in recent years; they all know why. It's inescapable and inevitable.

 

 

 

 

(He says no, but three days later he's in Sardinia too, schooling his expression into surprise, all _why Leo, fancy meeting you here, what were the odds_ , because Gigi's nothing if not entirely insufferable. Leo laughs harder than he has since they left France, kicks sand at him and pulls him into a hug, pressing Gigi's smile into his neck.)

 

 

 

 

"How are you not sixty years old?" he jokes, just a whisper against Gigi's ear as yet another reporter makes yet another meal out of his thousandth game. He smashes records as easily as he saves goals these days; Leo considers it part of his job to keep his head from getting too big.

"I am," Gigi says drily, staring straight ahead and waiting for his cue to go out and talk to the press, but one corner of his mouth does lift up. "Nobody believes me. I take my vitamins and sleep eight hours a night, that's all there is to it."

They poke fun at it like it's nothing, but Leo hears him yelling louder than anyone else during the anthem, watches the pure euphoria take over his face as he opens his eyes to the roaring crowd afterward. He looks impossibly young for a moment, soft and exuberant, and Leo knows they're going to win this one.

He clasps their hands together when Gigi heads back to the box, leans in to kiss his cheek. A thousand times, and it never loses its magic.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, endless supplemental notes:
> 
> \- gigi played a whopping 46 minutes of the 2010 world cup before being subbed off with a herniated disc and issues with his sciatic nerve. it ended up keeping him out until early 2011.
> 
> \- so, ferrarini is a motivational coach leo began working with while he was on loan at treviso. he still works with him to this day, and they have... uh, some [unusual](http://www.football-italia.net/56483/bonucci-punched-mental-coach) [tactics](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2783585/Leonardo-Bonucci-given-garlic-sweets-told-breathe-Francesco-Totti-Gervinho-s-faces-Juventus-Serie-A-clash-Roma.html).
> 
> \- the italian bbc is bonucci, barzagli, chiellini. antonio conte switched from his preferred 4-4-2 so he could play the three of them together, and six years later they're still the [iron clad bff defense](http://j-u-v-e.tumblr.com/post/156165913500/with-buffon-its-the-bbbc-it-is-certainly-a) of juve and azzurri.
> 
> \- andrea barzagli is an angel who [saves ladybugs](http://m.calciomercato.com/en/news/james-ita-esp-218135) from football pitches. also, he was [understandably broken](http://strikerbacks.tumblr.com/post/146829673374/skylikethat-andrea-barzagli-in-tears-after-the) after italy fell to germany in the euro 2016 quarter-finals after nine rounds of penalty kicks. (it's worth noting leo scored the only goal for italy in that match, a penalty, and then botched his shootout pk.)
> 
> \- [REALLY WISH I WAS MAKING UP THAT QUOTE ABOUT BREATHING GIGI IN BUT I'M NOOOOOT](http://j-u-v-e.tumblr.com/post/143589853955/you-are-unlucky-enough-to-only-see-gigi-during-the)
> 
> \- gigi reached 1000 professional caps during italy's world cup qualifier against albania. if that's not nuts, i don't know what is. he then threatened that there will be 1000 more, because. of course he did. he's gigi.
> 
> \- [anyway i'll just leave this here and back away slowly](http://football-hqs.tumblr.com/post/146601594720)
> 
> \- thank you for reading! ♥ as always, don't hesitate to yell with me on [tumblr](http://strikerbacks.tumblr.com).


End file.
